Federation

“ Gentlemen, you may call the union which binds us an empire, you may call it a federation, you may call it an offensive and defensive alliance of the closest kind—you may call it what you will—the name is of subordinate consequence while mutual sympathy and sentiment retain that binding force which, as we have seen in this Jubilee week, you are all so generously prepared to acknowledge in your relations with the old country. ”

“ If federation is to come about at all as a definite and effective organisation, the spontaneous action of the different members of the Empire in a position in which they are free to stay with us or to leave us as they please, appears the readiest and perhaps the only means by which it can be brought to pass. ”

“ By this method a union can be established without forming a federation—which means too much on the one side, in the surrender of position and individuality by the United States and England—while mere vague, indefinite expressions of sympathy and ephemeral good feeling, on the other, accomplish too little. It is too much to demand or expect a federation; while a mere moral entente falls short in effectiveness and practical result. ”

“ It is a fact that is not paralleled in any past history, and what may come in the future to compare with it or excel it, it is not for us to speak of, or even with any show of reason to imagine; but we have in all these millions the same language, the same literature, mainly the same laws and the institutions of freedom. May we not hope for the highest and noblest federation to be established among us? ”

“ Turning to federal states, which form the fourth class of political communities, we find that all of them are alike in having a central government both legislative and executive, whose sphere of action is strictly limited by the constitution to certain portions of the work of governing, and in permitting each of the states, which are joined together in the federation, also to have a government of its own, which controls all business except that portion which is allotted by the constitution to the central government of the federation. ”

“ In each of the great federal unions some of the members, in some of them all the members, distinctly gained in political position by entering the Union. Federation is a check on independence; but many of the states had never known separate independence. But it will be quite another thing to ask a great power, a ruling power, a mighty and ancient kingdom, which has for ages held its place among the foremost nations of the earth, to give up its dominion,129 to give up its independence, to sink of its own will to the level of a new State or Canton. ”

“ If the Congress of 1826 had proclaimed a federation, the chiefs that then represented the federation would have cried unity; the opposition was against men, not against things, which were but a pretext. ”

“ What is desirable in this federation to preserve ourselves from the menace of other civilizations? How shall we balance our powers to ensure freedom to the individual and freedom to local groups to follow their individual yearnings with safety to them and to us all? ”

“ The ideal of Federation which naturally presents itself to the mind is one which provides a supreme Parliament or Council, national not merely in name but in reality, because containing in just proportion representatives of all the self-governing communities of the Empire. Such a body, relegating the management of local affairs to local Governments, and devoting its attention to a clearly defined range of purely Imperial concerns, would seem to satisfy a great national necessity. ”

“ The second cardinal fact about the Federation is that its organizers were wise enough to incorporate and express in its constitution the distinct policy of making both its aims and its membership as completely representative as possible of all the interests which the most liberal interpretation could call the concerns of good citizens. ”

“ We do not give a part to one group and a part to another, but we give our whole to each and the whole remains for every other relation. Life escapes its classifications and this is what some of the writers on group organization do not seem to understand. This secret of the spirit is the power of the federal principle. True federation multiplies each individual. We have thought that federal government consisted of mechanical, artificial, external forms, but really it is the spirit which liveth and giveth life. ”

“ The words “Imperial Federation,” “Federation of the Empire,” either mean nothing, or they mean that on all “imperial” questions the speakers of English shall be liable to be outvoted by the speakers of Tamul and Telugu. A federation which does not give these last equal federal rights with their European fellow-subjects is not a “Federation of the Empire,” but only of a small part of the “Empire.” Such a federation would be, as regards India, simply an enlargement of the dominant “we,” an admission of more members to “we”-ship and its privileges. ”

“ In America, the experiment of a federation on this principle broke down in the first few years of its existence, happily while the men of enlarged knowledge and acquired ascendancy who founded the independence of the Republic were still alive to guide it through the difficult transition. ”

“ In the most perfect form of federation the states agree to delegate to a supreme federal government certain powers or functions inherent in themselves in their sovereign or separate capacity, and the federal government, in turn, in the exercise of those specific powers acts directly, not only on the communities making up the federation, but on each individual citizen. ”

“ Federation is here recognized as the method by which English-speaking people ensure the freedom of the individual. It utilizes ideals and methods common to them all. Where it has been applied, it fulfils its dual purpose of protecting the group and leaving the individual unhampered. ”

“ Under any federation, growth in unity is bound to be slow. The relations of the provinces to the federal power must be worked out and their relations to each other must be adjusted. Time alone could solve such a problem. Until the system took definite shape national sentiment was feeble. But a modified and well-poised federation, with its strong central government and its carefully guarded provincial rights, at last won the day. ”

“ Instead of a loosely knit federation, therefore, which might have fallen to pieces at the first serious strain, it was resolved to bring the central legislature into close contact at many points with the individual citizen, and thus raise the new state to the dignity of a nation. ”

“ The difficulty in establishing a federation is, that neither the United States nor England would be willing to surrender its national individuality and rank in the same degree of statehood as Canada, Australia, or one of the minor colonies or dependencies of either of the first-named countries. A federation places each independent state, politically at least, upon an equal footing, and the disparity of population, or territory (to say nothing of prestige) is too great to render such a plan practicable. ”

“ I was fully aware that it might be objected that a federal union would, in many cases, produce a weak and rather cumbrous government; that a Colonial federation must have, in fact, little legitimate authority or business, the greater part of the ordinary functions of a federation falling within the scope of the imperial legislature and executive ”

“ Finance makes or mars Federations. Some Federations or organic Unions of independent States have come into being through a strong desire in the separate States to have, among other things, a common system of Customs, and in the case of the German Empire and the South African Union a Customs Union or Zollverein has preceded Federation. These phenomena are the most marked illustration of the general truth that a common desire to federate, or unite, on the part of individual States is a condition precedent to a sound Federation or Union. ”

“ Before federation or anything like it is possible, certain conditions must be present. There must be a comparatively uniform development throughout the Empire, the different parts which make the federal units showing a certain level of civic well-being. One State may be richer than another, or may base its wealth on different grounds; but all must have attained to a certain height of self-conscious national life, otherwise they will enter the federation on different terms, and instead of harmony will find abiding discontent. ”

“ All that the federation proposes to do is to take charge of the functions that concern274 the things for which the federation is founded, and these are things to which the states are not so well adjusted as a united government.” And so it proved in practice. No American has ever had reason to think his liberty lessened because the union was formed ”

“ Federation was evolved by our race. Though its use was only dimly understood in the years that followed 1643, its powers are now known to us. It has proved the means of welding many of our once jealous and discordant units into concentrated and self-protective powers. ”

“ With the American appropriation and assimilation of these inherited political ideas, there exists language, literature, and all the rest of the kindred sympathies, making a tie stronger than blood, and culminating in the grand conception of federation developed into government, i.e., the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ Yet this is the only federation which seems possible among monarchical states. A king, who holds his power by inheritance, not by delegation, and who can not be deprived of it, nor made responsible to any one for its use, is not likely to renounce having a separate army, or to brook the exercise of sovereign authority over his own subjects, not through him, but directly by another power. To enable two or more countries under kingly government to be joined together in an effectual confederation, it seems necessary that they should all be under the same king. ”

“ The federation binds them always to fight on the same side; and if they have such feelings toward one another, or such diversity of feeling toward their neighbors that they would generally prefer to fight on opposite sides, the federal tie is neither likely to be of long duration, nor to be well observed while it subsists. The sympathies available for the purpose are those of race, language, religion, and, above all, of political institutions, as conducing most to a feeling of identity of political interest. ”

“ Thus apparently any change in the basic structure of the Federation or any amendment materially altering provisions such as those relating to the position of the Governor-General in respect of External Affairs and Defence would have affected the accession of the States.
50. An important feature of this scheme was that the proposed Federation was to be composed of disparate constituent units in which the powers and authority of the Federation were to differ as between one constituent unit and another. ”

“ Considering these things I find myself driven, in closing my essay, to a serious examination of the possibility of creating a world federation265 out of the chaos that now floats over the globe—not an integrated world empire, with power over all phases of political action, but a federation that will have authority to regulate the forces that make for war. If such a thing could be created and accepted by the states of the world, it would make the present struggle, with all its horrors, the best and most fortunate event that has come to humanity since the beginning of the Christian era. ”

“ Imperial federation, as it is called, is far away, if ever it is to be realised at all. If it is to come it will come of itself, brought about by circumstances and silent impulses working continuously through many years unseen and unspoken of. It is conceivable that Great Britain and her scattered offspring, under the pressure of danger from without, or impelled by some general purpose, might agree to place themselves for a time under a single administrative head. ”

“ We need not an entente between two or three governments, and alliances on the part of two others, but a union of all in a compact Federation, by which any violation of the laws of the Federation shall be treated as a ground of action of all against that one. ”

“ Suppose a con- federation of states had never been adopted, but every stale had remained absolutely in its independent situation,—no person could, with propriety, say that the citizen of the large state was not as important as the citizen of the smaller. ”

“ The federation is composed of these lesser organizations. No matter which one of the many forms of human association is examined, the same thing will be found true. Each social group is composed either of individuals or of lesser social groups which have certain common interests and certain co-operative activities, and which band themselves together in response to their interests and in pursuance of these activities. It is this organic structure of society to which Hobson applies the phrase "the federal units which society presents." ”

“ Little or no power is conceded to the federation, which is looked upon pretty much as a mere matter of convenience. The idea of the general good remains in the background. Jealousies, squabblings and even betrayals are the order of the day. ”

“ The division of a country into regions, provinces, districts, and communes, as in France, will naturally depend on the traditions, the specific circumstances, and the particular nature of each country. We can only point out here the two fundamental and indispensable principles which must be put into effect by any country seriously trying to organize a free society. First: all organizations must proceed by way of federation from the base to the summit, from the commune to the coordinating association of the country or nation. ”

“ An alliance which recognised equality, if only in the sense of an equal national status, might be regarded as a step towards federation. The other essential feature of federation, namely, the association of citizens as units, distinguished from the association of States as units, always on the basis of equality, may take a long time to appear in practice, as Mr. Deakin admits. It never can appear as the outcome of a negative policy. ”